What’s for Dinner?
MomBrain is proud to announce the most recent Medal of Honor winner: The Big Guy, for extreme bravery. This is because only the most courageous man would call her cell phone and ask “What’s for dinner?” after she had supervised a 5-hour playdate on only 3 hours of jet-lagged sleep, played a rousing game of Scrabble with an 8-year-old, washed three loads of laundry, paid the bills, and dragged her exhausted butt to the grocery store. What’s for dinner? Are you serious?
To be fair, MomBrain is being just the tiniest bit ungrateful. After all, the Guys had been eating nonstop pizza and take-out for a week while she sunned herself in Mexico. So who can blame the malnourished Big Guy for hoping that actual food would appear upon her return?
Truly, if Steven Covey himself were to ask me to identify the single most important thing I could do for my family, it would be to get control of dinner. Make a meal plan. Do the shopping. Prepare ahead of time. Serve it hot. But in fact the daily question “What’s for dinner?” is the single most challenging part of my day. I do not enjoy cooking, both of the Guys are picky but hungry eaters, and left to my own devices I would subsist on tea and toast. What’s for dinner? I just don’t know.
Peelings, nothing more than peelings
Welcome to Emergency Beautification Day. My flight to Cancun leaves in 21 hours, and today is all about the mani, the pedi, and the spray tan, in that order. The Guys are steering clear, ducking the whirlwind of sleeveless tops, sandals, and straw hats. Found a swimsuit - a disappointing brown, but it fits and flatters, so there. All that’s left is the packing and beautifying, squeezed between a Little League Game, a picnic, and a birthday party. Then it’s off to the beach with Sister L, my niece Twiggy and her friends.
If you are in Cancun next week, look for a pale, bloated life-form floating face down by the swim-up bar. Your children may cry that they saw a raw chicken, or perhaps a dead squid-like fish bobbing in the waves. Do not be alarmed - it is only MomBrain, testing her snorkel and exposing her lily-white thighs to the cruel Mexican sun. As for the swim-up bar, only a shot of tequila will convince me to wear a bathing suit a)in public and b)next to my size 2, 17-year-old 
